"Real" wholemeal bread vs "spongy" sliced w/m bread?

shysal

Each time I try sliced wholemeal bread I detect a bitterness which has put me off. Instead I buy multigrain or seeded.

Same for me.
I thought I was the only one, judging by the fuss my mum made when I said I didn't like it.

there is a great real bread campaign these days which explains all the differences, its just like the old days we had a real ale campaign

www.sustainweb.org/realbread/

The Heyford loaf at Waitrose? Hmm, that sounds interesting! Thanks for the suggestion.

It's sad to learn that Cranks have ceased producing their "Whole Lotta Loaf". Substitutes like the Heyford loaf will have to stand in for this absence, at least for now. Really, though, it looks like homebaking is the way forward over the longer term. . .

Many thanks for the input.

When I enquired in Waitrose yesterday, the partner looked it up and confirmed that Cranks bread was ‘ no longer on the system’
The space on the shelf where it formerly sat was full of Jason’s bread.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202402/medium-236981-img-2116.jpeg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202402/medium-228033-img-2117.jpeg

A couple of the many bread recipes from the 1982 edition of The Cranks Recipe Book

Oreo

The reason many things including bread doesn’t taste as good as it used to is low salt.
Salt is what brings out the flavour in cooking and health diktats means that very low amounts are used.

I don't believe this - "real" bread is delicious (my husband's no salt breads are all delicious).
That includes rye, spelt, khorasan, einkorn, yeasted, sodabread or sourdough

My local Waitrose hasn't had Cranks for ages. 🙁

I make whole meal loaves in my bread maker - three a week.It is lovely and without additives.I rarely buy shop bread except for occasional burger buns.

100% agree with MOnica. If it is not good enough for the ducks in the park why are we expected to eat it... (Personally rye bread only. Hard to find, slows meals as you really need to chew - but no digestive problems or headaches since 2000 - the year I stopped eating refined). One slice = at least 2 paste bread.

I only bought Cranks when I felt lazy or couldn’t find a 2 hour slot in my day to put the breadmaker on. In that situation now I can make do with the Heyford loaf or the Sainsburys wholemeal loaf. Not sliced, never sliced. But normally I use my breadmaker every 3rd day to feed three of us and my grandson will groan if I have bought bread and ask for “nanny bread”. The breadmaker is brilliant and I experiment with added ingredients. I always make bread with one fifth rye flour added to the wholemeal flour for the taste and often add milled linseed or other milled seeds on a whim. It’s always delicious whatever shape it comes out as.

It is sad that companies like Cranks are struggling though.. so much has changed in the last 4 years.

I make James Martin's Easy Irish soda bread every 5 days or so. Delicious!
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/irishsodabread_67445
However, I don't use buttermilk, I use 275ml. milk acidulated with a good squeeze of lemon juice 5 minutes before mixing. I tend to buy strong wholemeal and strong white flour (it's half ad half). It takes 5 minutes to mix (with a fork) and bakes in 30 - 35 minutes. Great to have with soup, cheese, as toast with eggs or marmalade & jam. No good for sarnies though - too crumbly!

NotSpaghetti

Oreo

The reason many things including bread doesn’t taste as good as it used to is low salt.
Salt is what brings out the flavour in cooking and health diktats means that very low amounts are used.

I don't believe this - "real" bread is delicious (my husband's no salt breads are all delicious).
That includes rye, spelt, khorasan, einkorn, yeasted, sodabread or sourdough

Believe what you like.
Commercial bread has had to lower the salt in line with other food manufacturers, for health reasons.
Since I don’t want to eat any of the kinds of bread your DH makes at home I can’t say if it’s delicious or not.
Chefs use an amazing amount of both salt and sugar to make things taste better, but it isn’t good for us.

Sago,can you give the exact ingredients you use for the sourdough please.I have never made bread but this sounds good.I don't have a breadmaker do you use one?

If I make bread I usually slice it once it is stiff enough (the next day) and freeze what I can't eat quickly. I have a manual slicer so can get the slices pretty even.

Oh no !!! I cant believe they have stopped selling it .. I had so much difficulty finding it in Waitrose ... They will now say " there was no call for the bread " ...

I miss proper unsliced Hovis wholemeal bread.
They don’t seem to manufacture it anymore.

The sliced stuff just isn’t the same.

We enjoyed a wholemal loaf from a supermarket for several years, and then production stopped. We could find nothing else that tasted as good, so we bought a breadmaker. Every few days I make a loaf that is 80% wholemeal/20% white and it is delicious - no additives, just yeast, flour, butter, a small amount of salt and sugar and water. The effort is minimal, two minutes at most to put ingredients into the breadmaker.

I have hardly bought bread since I treated myself to a very lovely Panasonic bread maker. It makes gorgeous bread and I can use whole meal, add seeds and whatever else I fancy. We live seven miles from the shops so it is brilliant being able to make my own. It doesn’t last as long as supermarket bread but I just cut it in half, freeze half so there is no waste.

Oreo - I wasn't challenging your assertion that there were "levels" of salt - I was trying (obviously badly) to say that you don't need any salt for food to be delicious.

I should have said that I believe you only need salt I suppose if you always have it!

I buy Vogel sliced Original in Waitrose as it freezes well

Bread - the staff of life. I love all bread/flour products but now I’m beginning to wonder if I’m building up to a gluten intolerance? I buy only bakery breads (all kinds) but never that spongy marshmallow stuff - that’s absolute poison.

Some bread (products), but not all flour-made things upset my stomach. I’ve tried to figure out what is it exactly that’s giving me heartburn - is it the way flour is milled? Is it the additives? Is it GMO flour (genetically modified)? Is it the yeast?

I do better with organic bread products but not always either. I do extremely well with sourdough bread. This also applies to pasta, where I find it very starchy, so I eat smaller portions. It’s just a mystery.

I don’t think I can ever give up bread, muffins, scones, cakes, cookies… I’ll just suffer through it.

I've never had Cranks bread but hve been buying an unsliced organic wholemeal loaf from Waitrose for the last few years. Unfortunately this has been unavailable for the last couple of weeks and is no longer listed. Tried 2 others from Waitrose and frankly nowhere near as good.

Gundy I suggest you cook your pasta and chill it for at least a couple of hours (ideally longer) and then reheat in your sauce. It is much more digestible that way - or even frozen. It is the same with potatoes.

I don't know if this applies to bakery items but it would definitely be worth a go I would think.

Fingers crossed.

Interesting reply from Cranks saying high production costs and being delisted by Waitrose. I wonder if they would start production again if Waitrose asked? Maybe everyone should bombard Waitrose with the request? Slightly different but many years ago my local (West Country)Waitrose stopped selling Rodda’s Clotted Cream. I was told they’d delisted it from the local store. I complained to the manager who turned out to be a Cornishman and it was reinstated.